The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-08-28
OF INTEREST TO WOMEN.
Defects of Figure Shown by Summer Gowns
The Fashionable WOmans Wardrobe.
Deforned Women.

DefOrmed women
Special to the Indianapolis Journal.
NEW YORK, Aug. PA perfectly formed
woman is of rarity than white crow.
Pretty faces belong to New York girls as a part
of the ordinary courtesy of nature. Beautiful
women, so far as hair. and lips and eyes can con-
tribute to beauty, are not uncommon sights, but
grace, or even symmetry Of figure, is among So
ciety girls or shop girls practically unknown.
Five women out of ten whom passes the
street deformed. a
August is good month in which to study the
female form divine Thick clothing is an inn
possibility Wraps of all descriptions cast
aside. In the cotton gown, which fashion has
decreed shall be as close fitting and as in
its outlines as it's wooden, tailor made model,
amount of padding and makeup, however
ingenious, disguise certain facts which
patent to everybody with eyes.
The average New York girl has two strong
points-her head and her hands. The head is we'll
shaped ana we'll set upon the shoulders. 1t is
not large but is alert in every turn and move
ment It impresses the observer belonging
to a sensitive, intelligent. highly civilized type,
whether he the face confines his view to
the tip of the ear and the coils of the hair. The
hands have grown progressively better since
tight gloves went out and out of door exercise
to be positively pretty, but tennis and archery
have given them a more muscular healthy, usa-
BILE look than their palld predecessors of a dozen
years ago.
But the figure That is cultivated product.
and compared with the wild growth gives
a curious idea of the feminine agriculturalists
who have taken its training in htnd. One has
to reckon in the first place, with the designed,
and in the second place with the accidental.
That is. one has to take into account the conven-
tional shape which the girl tries model her
self into, and the various notifications of that
shape brought about by the manner of life
work. exercise, etc. AS basis for the various
exigencies of life to work themselves out upon,
the New York girl for four FIVE
years past has started with Mrs Langtry.
There never Fl CURE exhibited in New
York that became more popular
widely initiated than the Langtry figure. and.
allowing for the faint touch of caricature that
marks imitation distinguished from the
original, and sometimes for the broader carica-
ture that shows the difference between dress
education aud non-education, there some
thousands of duplicates of the Langtry waist
and shoulders walking about the streets day.
The Liys neck ls beautiful, but her shape
English, and bad English, and the copies made
out of all sorts of flesh and blood material
A good example of the secondhand Lily
one of the throng of workers that poured of
big dry goods store at closing hour last night.
She was a sunset-headed belle, twenty years OLD
Whereabouts, good-looking, neatly dressed.
and very like her original in natural figure and
superinduced build. AS looked at her, her
shoulders. though really small, seemed of dis
proportionate size. The shoulder blades, through
dress necessities, were pushed out at angle and
the shoulders forced forward. giving a tilted
prominence to the whole upper part of the body.
Inc cneSb was trlHo nat Inc
waist six eight inches too small
and unnaturallv round. Across the bust Eran
the prominent line that marked the corset top,
and from this point to the wastline the body
was as unrespoDsive TO muscle movements, as
rigid and almost much beyond its owners
control as if it had been nodded out of dead clay.
The hips were too large. With the swaying of
the draperies the swish and swing of the ex-
tensive hustle. the figure gave the impression of
being insecurity fastened In the middle, and one
invoiuntarily hoped the hinge might not give
way and the thing break in two The probable
tiles that her calves would have showed bad
garter-marks and that she would not have barred
her feet except in strictest privacy for a good
round sum.
This English figure is very general working
pattern, and sometimes passing cluster of girls
on the pavements who have given many years
to its cultivation. one can guess at the every
day habits that have brought about individual
peculiarlties, differentiatiug figure from figure
and adding special to general deformity. An
English waist on a girl who doesn't take much
exercise is apt to remain closest to the average
type. Long, thin arms the only character
istic in such cases added. Az glish figure at
clerks or copyists, or stenographer's desk always
gets shoulder and sometimes one whole side
of the figure higher than the other. But it is
the athletic girl the new type of girl who goes
in for pretty nearly all the sports her brother
takes up, who is, if she has previously cnti-
waited her figure, the worst deformed girl
of all. There is nothing like athletics
and corsets, mixed in alternate Doses to
bring out the possibilities of curves twists and
abnormal developments in a modern girl. All
British iemin'nlty is at present engaged In
screaming contradictions at Labourchere, be-
cause he had the hardihood TO declare that ten
nls-paylng girls were crooked. In a hair dozen
groups at the Contra! Park yesterday. L picked
out four PLAYERS whose right shoulders were
noticeably of different shape from the left, ana
six seven in whom the same thing. though
less obvious had begun to manifest itself, the
summer exertion enlarglng the muscles anu
tight clothing thrusting them out of place and
accenr1ating the uneven development or the
body. Girls who row in corsets are curious
sight, the extra muscular development all taxing
place high up where the blood has a chance TO
circulate and making the shoulders tower aooVe
the rest of the body.
When see a woman who is not deformed l
mark the day with red letter. Mrs. iom
Thumb the Countess Magrie they call her now,
enioys the distinction of being the only sym met-
really shaped midget The women OF full size
who have bodies whose lines sculptor would
care TO COPY without alteration occupy positions
almost as UNIQUE Miss Alice Freeman has
owed much of her success at Wellesley to the
fact that she is a magnificent specimen of wom-
anhood physically. finely formed and command
ilv movers No whalebones creak
when she walks. Maria Mitchell. the
astronomer, with her white hairs, would shame
MANY younger woman with her perfect ply
former will succeed, if she succeeds. because
she Is herself harmony from top to toe In every
line Miss Grace H. Dodge the school commits
sioDer. has one of tie best figures In New York